Caroline Wozniacki and defending champion Hsieh Su-Wei commit to play BMW Malaysian Open 2013

Malaysian tennis fans will be in for a treat next year as former world no. 1 Caroline Wozniacki will play in the BMW Malaysia Open from Feb 25-March 3 at the Royal Selangor Golf Club.

Wozniacki who is now ranked no. 10 will be joined by defending champion Hsieh Su-Wei.

Earlier Wozniacki was spotted at the Miami Heat game with her golfer boyfriend Rory McIlroy who reportedly bought a $10.9 million home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

(Image via Tennis Forum)

Mixed doubles tennis for London 2012

Finally the IOC has approved adding mixed doubles event to the Olympics.

This new category will be part of the lineup for the 2012 London Games, where the tournament will be played on grass at Wimbledon.

Rendy and Hsieh

Asia has some very good mixed double pairs like India's Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi (2009 Australian Open champs) as well as Taiwan's Rendy Lu Yen-hsun and Hsieh Su-wei (Asian Hopman Cup winners).

Asian boys come out top at Aussie Open

Top-seed Yuki Bhambri became India's first Australian Open boys champion after breezing past Alexandros-Ferdinandos Georgoudas in just 57 minutes to win 6-3, 6-1.

His previous best junior grand slam performance came at last year's Australian Open, when he lost in a semi-final to Bernard Tomic, who went on to win the event.

"Winning the Australian Open is obviously a very big achievement, regardless of being the first Indian," Bhambri said.

"I dreamed of winning it, and it's come true."

The Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy's student said one of the toughest aspects of the match had been overcoming his nerves about playing on Rod Laver Arena.

"I was actually quite nervous in the beginning . . . the first time actually playing on such a huge stadium," he said.

"You don't (normally) get opportunities like this to play. As the game and match progressed I felt much more comfortable over there."

In the boys' doubles final, the Philippines' Francis Casey Alcantara and Taiwan's Hsieh Cheng-Peng combined to down Russian Mikhal Biryukov and Japan's Yasutaka Uchiyama 6-4, 6-2.

If you think Cheng-Peng looks familiar, he is the little brother of Hsieh Su-Wei.


(Via news.com.au, Aussie Open website)

Hyundai Hopman Cup: Oh, c'mon Chinese Taipei!

How could Chinese Taipei possibly miss the golden chance to beat the Russian team?

Russia's bro & sis team of Marat Safin and Dinara Safina has survived a tough challenge from Chinese Taipei to win 2-1 and remain unbeaten at the Hyundai Hopman Cup.

I'm devastated and I just can't accept the fact that Hsieh Su-wei and Rendy Lu Yen-hsun wasted such opportunities to win the singles matches.


Here are the final results:

Russia 2 defeated Chinese Taipei 1

• Dinara Safina d Hsieh Su-Wei 4-6, 6-2, 7-5
• Marat Safin d Yen-Hsun Lu 7-6 (8/6), 7-5
• Safina/Safin lost to Hsieh/Lu 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (8/10)
  

Safin, who has announced that 2009 is his final year on Tour, didn’t find things easy against Rendy, but is delighted to begin his Australian summer with two wins.

"He's a very complete player, is very smart, fast and good from all the sides. He seems to read the game well, his anticipation is incredible and it's quite tough to break him," Safin said.

The Russian team will face the highly-rated French team of Alize Cornet and Gilles Simon on Thursday night to guarantee qualification.

A French victory will mean that France, Russia and Italy could all be on two victories by the end of the Round-Robin series and the finalist from Group A will be decided by the calculator.

(Via Hopman Cup official website)

Gilles Simon & Alize Cornet too hot for Rendy Lu & Hsieh Su-wei to handle

I watched the Hopman Cup, the match between France and Taiwan today. I honestly thought Taiwan had a chance. Well, I hope but it didn't happen.

It was a disappointing lost for Taiwan who can't handlehot favourite, France.

Alize Cornet beat Hsieh Su-wei 6-4, 6-4 and Gilles Simon defeated Rendy Lu Yen-hsun 6-3, 7-6 (8).

Rendy should have lend his shirt to Gilles.

The pair then combined to beat Hsieh and Rendy 6-4, 7-6 (9) in mixed doubles to complete France’s 3-0 win, saving five set points in the tiebreaker.

The duo will play Italy's Flavia Pennetta and Simone Bolelli next up on Tuesday.

(Images via Yahoo! Sport)

Serena Williams pulls out of Hopman Cup

I'm actually looking forward to this tournament because of the great line up of players.

It's pretty sad that Serena Williams will not be teaming up with James Blake to play against the brother and sister team Marat Safin and Dinara Safina.

Williams announced that she has to withdraw from next month's Hopman Cup mixed teams event after suffering from a hamstring injury.

The US Open winner injured her hamstring in the year-ending WTA Championships and has not been able to recover in time to prepare for the Perth tournament, although she still intends to play the Australian Open later in January.

World No.10 Blake will now be partnered by Meghann Shaughnessy.

When Blake was in Malaysia last month, I had the opportunity to ask him a question regarding the Hopman Cup.



Teams who will be playing are: US (Meghann Shaughnessy/James Blake x1), Russia (Marat Safin/Dinara Safina x2), France (Alize Cornet/Gilles Simon x3), Australia (Casey Dellacqua/Lleyton Hewitt x4), Italy (Simone Bolelli/Flavia Pennetta x5), Germany (Sabine Lisicki/Nicolas Kiefer x6), Slovak Republic (Dominika Cibulkova/Dominik Hrbaty x7), Taiwan (Su-Wei Hsieh/Lu Yen-Hsun x8).

(Via AFP)

Maria Kirilenko beats Samantha Stosur for Korea Open title; lost in doubles final

Russia's Maria Kirilenko has won the 2008 Hansol Korea Open.

This is Kirilenko third singles title of the year, having also won Tier IV titles during the clay court season in Estoril and Barcelona.

The no.1 seed who was runner-up last year to Venus Williams improved on that result Sunday afternoon against Australia's Samantha Stosur.

"I think this year, I’m a much better player, and I also had more difficult wins than last year," Kirilenko said during the press conference after her win.

"From the, I don’t know, the first round, I didn’t know the girl with whom I played, but anyway, she played quite good. And then from the second round to the final, I had very good players. And I’m really happy that I beat all of them. I feel that I’m improving, you know."

Kirilenko rallied from a set down to claim the Tier IV title with a 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.

However, Kirilenko who was back on Centre Court for the doubles final with her partner Vera Dushevina lost to defending champions Chuang Chia-Jung and Hsieh Su-Wei.

(Image by JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images)

Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai Win Doubles in Bali

Hsieh Su-Wei of Chinese Taipei and Peng Shuai of China came back from the brink of defeat to capture the Tier III Commonwealth Bank Tennis Classic doubles title over unseeded Marta Domachowska and Nadia Petrova.

Although both have previously won two Tour doubles titles with other partners, the win is their first as a combination.

In the nail-biting final the pair even held three match points on Petrova's serve at 5-4 in the second set, only to see Hsieh and Peng draw level, seize the ensuing tie-break and then the decider for a 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 10-7 victory.

"It was a great match today," Peng said.

"It was really exciting for us and the crowd too, I think. I'm really happy to win with my partner. We have been good friends for eight years now and she's always been helping me and giving me advice, so to share this with her, it really doesn't get any better than this."

(News via Sony Ericsson WTA website, Image via ESPN)